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Moving Towards Launch

As we begin our new semester and move towards a December launch, we're thinking about a number of things related to CSUMB.EDU Rethink, including:

Launch on Friday, December 19, 2014.

Continue to audit and migrate content

MyCSUMB becomes just Dashboard

Groups move to Google Groups

Launch

In general, we like to launch large systems in the least disruptive way. Usually this is when we are between semesters or after high-use times, such as registration or end-of-semester.

For Rethink, we will work towards a launch by close-of-business on Friday, December 19, 2014. This is at the end of the final exam period as well as the capstone festival.

If we need the time, we will move a launch date into early January but well before the first day of instruction on January 20.

Content Audit

We are in the midst of an "all-hands" review and migrating of content, starting with the Catalog, followed by academic sites (which will re-use Catalog content) and then non-academic websites. Web Services has hired two student assistants to help out (Nelly Peters-Campbell and Danielle Johnson).

If you haven't already met with our User Experience Specialist, Liz MacDonald (and many of you have!), let's at least review the existing content on your site and begin your migration of content.

MyCSUMB

In the new website, we are preparing to present you a "Dashboard" when you login from CSUMB.EDU. This will include the specific messages applicants and student receive, such as checklist and holds, but will include events that are specific to students versus employees.

You will continue to see blocks of data, like OtterCard balance and Print Balance.

And except for links highest trafficked examples (e.g. iLearn, CMS, MyHousing), most links will move to the department or service point where they can provide much better context and get more use. You can bookmark your most used links to the dashboard as well.

Groups

Most groups in MyCSUMB are rarely trafficked, so we won't continue to compete with other popular alternatives (e.g. Facebook). For internal groups, we are looking at either Google Groups or Communities in Google+, both of which can be used for external needs as well.

Campus News & Events will become just a messaging system in Dashboard and will continue to be the source of official announcements.

Staff & Faculty will move to being messages seen in the Dashboard of someone with the employee role.

We will still have the ability to message per a list of OtterIDs, which has been very useful for surveying students or communication to specific majors.

Switching the body text to a sans serif font increases legibility, which is a measure of how easy it is to distinguish one letter from another. Characters in a sans serif typeface don’t have the tails that serif typeface characters have, which adds space between characters making them easier to read.

Changing the header font to a wider sans serif typeface improves legibility because header characters are no longer compressed, which makes characters difficult to read. We also adjusted the font size of all headers to improve readability, which refers to how easy it is to read words, phrases, blocks of copy such as a book. With…

On Monday, May 22, 2017, Web Services will improve its editor used to create content in csumb.edu.

This will be the first significant improvement to the editor since we launched the last redesign in February 2015.

In addition, we will provide some significant updates to how we create and display key elements, including:Improving how events get made, shared across campus, and displayed on the page.Enabling the ability to "clip" content from one CSUMB site and used on another.Improving how news is displayed on a page.Introducing several new content blocks that will provide more functionality.
Test the new editor
You can test the new editor on a separate site with duplicated content. Our internal user experience team is testing as well and we encourage you to play with it until it breaks. Then tell us about it at webservices@csumb.edu

We will also hold presentations at upcoming Technology Open Labs starting May 5 and running through May 19. Each lab will hold a presentation at …

Coming on Monday, May 22, when we go live with the new editor , you will see a new editing block called “clipping.”

You will be able to clip individual blocks on a page and insert them into your own page. This allows you to publish content that belongs to someone else, and when they update it, the content updates on your page as well.

Screenshots
To start clipping start by adding the clipping block to the page where you want the content of another page.

After adding the clipping block, begin clipping by clicking the begin clipping button.

After clicking "Begin clipping" you will now be in clipping mode. You can navigate to the page with the content you want to clip by using the site's navigation or if you already know the URL you can enter the full URL.

When you are on the page you clip by clicking the "clip part of this page" button to be able to select the blocks you want to clip from the page.